A bellwether is any entity in a given arena that serves to create or influence trends or to presage future happenings. The term is derived from the Middle English bellewether and refers to the practice of placing a bell around the neck of a castrated ram (a wether) in order that this animal might lead its flock of sheep.
Ah, another great night for political junkies -- the Super Tuesday results.
I had a meeting until 8.30 pm today but I received the first projections on my cell phone. During the evening we watched the results coming in. I had to look up the locations of some of the states (Idaho, Missouri) and it was interesting to see the differences between various parts of the countries.
Lots of states were still being counted as of midnight, but it looks like Ms. Clinton and Mr. Obama are going head to head, with a slight edge for Clinton. Pretty amazing, compared to the polls only two months ago when Clinton was ahead it every state on the ballot this week. The contest on the Democratic side will go on for many more weeks, something that I believe is in Obama's favor.
The results on the Republic side were quite interesting. My prediction that Mr. Romney would win the nomination looks pretty shaky right now as became clear in the last week. Mr. Huckabee is doing surprisingly well -- better than Romney even. The only thing that caused the crowd to loudly cheer in Mitt Romney's headquarters was when he said: "...and we're going to end illegal immigration". Neither McCains nor Clinton's speeches were very inspiring but all candidates must be extremely tired by now. At the same time: Mr. Obama's speech was again very well delivered -- what a gifted speaker.
Yesterday afternoon I cooked a recipe from La Bela Vita, a book with recipes from Tuscany, Italy. It has a beautiful picture of their four cheese calzones so that recipe was the first one I tried.
It took a lot of work to make the dough and the stuffing but there is something very satisfying about making dough and baking. The recipe called for chopped thyme in the dough, that was a nice touch.
The main part of the stuffing was a mixture of different cheeses. I used Bulgarian feta cheese, a little bit of Fontina and Parmigiano-Regiano and mozzarella. In addition, I put fresh oregan, parsley and basil, chopped roasted peppers and meat from an Italian sausage. Lots of chopping!
The end result was very delicious. I don't have a picture of the inside of the calzone but there is a nice empty space in them, with a layer of the stuffing which looks white from the cheeses, and green from the fresh herbs.
Ah, another great night for political junkies -- the Super Tuesday results.
Yesterday afternoon I cooked a recipe from La Bela Vita, a book with recipes from Tuscany, Italy. It has a beautiful picture of their four cheese calzones so that recipe was the first one I tried.
